The present invention relates to a terminal for communication in an urban environment. A particularly advantageous application of the invention lies in the field of services that a local authority can provide for visitors.
Any person visiting a town generally needs to have information which is either municipal information or commercial information.
By way of example, xe2x80x9cmunicipalxe2x80x9d information can be a street map of the town, the route to be followed to go to a given location, the public transport network, the locations of sites to be visited, museums, cinemas, theaters, etc.
xe2x80x9cCommercialxe2x80x9d information relates to advertising enabling businesses and services in the town to make themselves known to visitors. Conversely, it can also be advantageous for the same visitors to have the option, on arrival, of making hotel, restaurant, taxi, etc. reservations directly.
Unfortunately, apart from a few town or district plans accompanied by a small amount of tourist or publicity information, urban environments do not at present have genuine interactive communications means giving visitors easy and fast access to the services they require.
An object of the present invention is to provide a communications terminal for communicating in an urban-environment and suitable for providing the above-mentioned municipal and commercial information in a manner that is simple for the user, low in cost for the municipality, and capable of being organized in a network of terminals that has a relatively high geographic density so that such a terminal is easily and conveniently accessible to the users.
These and other objects are attained in accordance with one aspect of the present invention which is directed to a communications terminal for communicating in an urban environment which includes a parking meter having print means and payment means. The terminal also includes a CPU, means for communicating with at least one information server, and an interface for selecting information.
The invention thus makes it simple to provide a terminal for communication in an urban environment by combining functions associated with a parking meter proper, i.e. paying for parking, and functions associated with communicating information. Any town that is fitted with or that is going to be fitted with parking meters can thus easily and without significant extra cost provide itself with means for providing access to the above-mentioned municipal and commercial information without needing to develop a special terminal dedicated to communicating with a server of such information. In addition, using parking meters as terminals for communicating information is particularly apt since they are to be found in large numbers in zones where-parking needs to be paid for, i.e. mainly in town centers, specifically where the need for information is the greatest. Finally, the terminal of the invention benefits from the same protection against the weather and vandalism as does a parking meter.
An advantage of the communications terminal of the invention is that any visitor arriving by car in a town must start by parking the car, and will naturally go to such a parking meter. Thus, while paying for parking, the visitor will also be given the option of accessing any information of interest.
Another advantage of the invention is that since a parking meter by construction already possesses means for printing out a xe2x80x9cpay-and-displayxe2x80x9d ticket, the same print means can also be used to provide the user with information on paper, such as a route, timetables for public transport, etc. It is also possible for businesses to use the terminal of the invention to issue cut-price offers for use in certain stores, shows, etc., so as to attract the potential clientele constituted by the users of parking meters.
Similarly, a parking meter has means for effecting payment, in particular by means of a card, so it is possible to devise uses of a communications terminal of the invention in supplying paid-for services, such as directly reserving a ticket for a show or a hotel room.
It will be understood that another advantage of the invention lies not only in its ability to be installed with new parking meters, but that it can also be retrofitted to meters that are already installed, with the information-and-communication function being obtained by adding the necessary equipment, namely the CPU, the communications means, and the selection interface.